Toyota shocked Hyundai by clinching the 2013 “Korea Car of the Year” award with its Camry model in South Korea. Hyundai was apparently so taken aback that none of its officials attended the presentation ceremony.

A Hyundai official told The Korea Herald, “We are perplexed. It would have been a lot better if a Korean brand won the top prize.” Taking into consideration that the ‘European Car of The Year’ award winner has not always be a European make, Hyundai should perhaps feel less upset. The past two winners were the Kia K5 in 2011 and the Hyundai i40 in 2012.

Toyota Camry was introduced to the Korean market back in 2011 when tax cuts on imported vehicles were made.

To counter the effects of the strong Yen, Toyota imported the vehicles from the U.S instead of Japan. For readers’ information, imported car sales surged 24.6% in 2012. To counteract the eroding market share, Hyundai has introduced price cuts for its flagship models and beefed up marketing efforts in its home market.

It looks like Hyundai is not going to be pleased with its government for opening up the floodgate to foreign imports.

I have been a car fanatic since 1989, when my father was changing our family car then to a Toyota Corolla 1.6 GL fitted with a Twin Cam 16 valve engine that was carburetor-fed, a big deal back in those days. The automobile technology and industry fascinates me and I hope to broadcast these interesting developments to everyone out there through this blog.